Cliffski's Blog - The kickstarter reality.But this is not *the* new publishing model, far from it. RPS noted that the developers ‘don’t have a publisher breathing down their necks’. Really? Maybe they have 10,000 publishers now, impatient, possibly wanting contradictory stuff (almost definitely…in fact), and not restrained by the politeness of scheduled milestone meetings behind closed doors. I hope it goes well, but it could get messy.

Plus the developer is boxed into a corner, they know exactly what they have to do with that money. This is not always a good thing. I ship maybe half the games I start. Gratuitous Tank Battles was not the game I intended to make. I intended to make a life-sim game, then abandoned it to make an RTS, then it morphed into GTB.

I don't think indecisiveness is really an issue for Schafer. He's stated that he's wanted to make an old-school adventure game for quite some time and I don't see him suddenly changing his mind. Also, he hasn't promised anything more than that so it's not like he has to bow to the every whim of the contributors. All he has to do is deliver an old-school adventure game.

The success of any Kickstarter fund relies entirely on people's faith. If the developer has proven that it can deliver in the past, people will be much more likely to invest in them. Schafer is behind some of the best adventure games of all time so people trust him to deliver yet again.

There's been talk of Obsidian (and more specifically, Chris Avellone) starting a Kickstarter fund for an old-school CRPG. Given that Avellone played a pivotal role behind some of my favorite RPGs, I'd gladly contribute.